Issue #243 / Feb 2021

Highlights:

With Linux, more innovation is always on the way. This month we take a look at the iNet wireless daemon, a new wireless client that is poised to replace the venerable WPA Supplicant.

Also in this issue:

• ExifTool and jExifToolGUI – read and manage image metadata from the command line.
• Optimizing Vector Graphics – small but expressive vector graphics files are great for websites, but if you're looking to optimize, get ready for some tweaking.

Check out MakerSpace for an exotic escape room puzzle built on Arduino, and visit LinuxVoice for a tutorial on Ventoy, an innovative app that lets you build multi-boot USB sticks.

SERVICE: Welcome

Search Daylight

The big search engines have way too much power over the business world. It almost doesn't matter what your business is. Almost every industry has some kind of online presence – either to sell directly or to provide information to users in need of addresses and product details.

SERVICE: This Month's DVD

Linux Mint 20 and Kali Linux 2020.4

NEWS: NEWS

In the news: Patreon Project Looks to Bring Linux to Apple Silicon; A New Chrome OS-Like Ubuntu Remix Is Now Available; System76 Refreshes the Galago Pro Laptop; Linux Kernel 5.10 Is Almost Ready for Release; Canonical Launches Curated Container Images; NS AWS Container Image Library in the Works.

NEWS: Kernel News

This month in Kernel News: Debugging Production Systems; Patch Submission Guidelines; New Filesystem for SSD and Flash Drives; and Unlocking Memory Access.

: iNet Wireless Daemon

Exploring Linux's new iNet wireless daemon

Intel's iNet wireless daemon offers virtually all of the features found in the obsolete WPA Supplicant, and it is smaller by a factor of 10.

REVIEWS: Trend Watcher

State of the distros

Bruce takes a look at DistroWatch data for a glimpse into the current state of Linux distributions.

REVIEWS: Sunflower

A twin-panel file manager based on Python 3/GTK3

Following in the footsteps of Norton Commander and its clones, the Sunflower twin-panel file manager takes a giant leap forward with a switch to Python 3 and GTK3.

: Branch Management

Working with Git branches

Git makes version control as simple as possible. To manage your Git branches successfully, you need to learn the ins and outs of git branch and git merge.

: ExifTool and jExifToolGUI

Reading and writing metadata from multimedia files

ExifTool lets you modify and analyze metadata in multimedia files from the command line, but its comprehensive feature set results in a lengthy learning curve. Luckily, jExiftoolGUI offers an intuitive interface that makes using ExifTool easier, even for less experienced users.

: History Lesson

For admins like Charly, who try to avoid typing at all costs, the shell offers an excellent opportunity to avoid wear on your fingertips in the form of built-in history.

: Firefox VA-API Integration

Decoding videos in Firefox with VA-API

Today's graphics cards not only specialize in quickly drawing graphics on the screen, but they can also speed up video playback, reducing the CPU's load. While Firefox supports this optimization, you must manually enable hardware acceleration to quickly decode video on the browser.

: Making History

Run statistics on typed shell commands

In the history log, the Bash shell records all commands typed by the user. Mike Schilli extracts this data with Go for a statistical analysis of his typing behavior.

: Optimizing Vector Graphics

Optimize SVG files for websites

Inkscape creates W3C-compliant SVG files, but they are usually larger than they need to be for the web. We'll show you how to optimize SVG files for faster load times.

: Tiny Core Linux

Developing Tiny Core Linux extensions

Tiny Core Linux does not boast a big repository. Sooner or later, you'll need to create your own extensions to get the most out of Tiny Core. This article shows you how.

: VS Code for Rasp Pi

Visual Studio Code for programming a Raspberry Pi

Professional and casual Python developers save time and keystrokes in a Visual Studio Code development environment for remote coding of a Raspberry Pi.

: Escape Room Puzzle

An ASCII puzzle for an escape room challenge

A digital puzzle presents a challenge for young people in an escape room.

LINUX VOICE: Introduction

This month in Linux Voice.

LINUX VOICE: maddog's Doghouse

Fluid Dynamics

A recent rocket launch has maddog thinking about high performance computing and accurate weather forecasts.

LINUX VOICE: Variety

Add Variety to your desktop

Don't let your desktop look boring. With the Variety wallpaper manager, you can easily set up a rotating selection of background images and other customized options.

LINUX VOICE: Bpytop

System resource monitoring with bpytop

Linux users have many options for monitoring system resources, but bpytop, a new Python port of bashtop, more than stands out from the crowd.

LINUX VOICE: FOSSPicks

This month Graham looks at Kushview Element, Artisan, NetSurf, SimulIDE, Oh My Zsh, and more!

LINUX VOICE: Saving Steps

A tool for distro hoppers

With Ventoy you can conveniently put multiple bootable ISO images on a single USB drive.